Thar she blows!

Well, we were GOING to write some quick blogs about our stops at Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Monument and Devils Tower but something more exciting happened today.

We blew TWO trailer tires at the same time on I-90 about 50 miles East of Butte, Montana. Joss was driving with me reading Hardy Boys mysteries to the boys and herding kittens when ALL OF THE SUDDEN... BAM (or was it BOOM?) I think it was more of a KA-BOOM with lots of flying rubber parts and smoke and who knows what else. Joss did a fantastic job of pulling the rig over carefully while I got the fire extinguisher and jumped out (I did mention smoke right?) Well the smoke was just the burning rubber from the disintegrated tire so we were okay in that respect.

When the steel-belts started whipping around in the wheel-well of the trailer, they started tearing things up. It's well known in the RVing world that tire blowouts can make for some COSTLY repairs. In our case it tore up the underside of the trailer all the way through the insulation and the subfloor bad enough to cause the carpet (inside) and the door molding to bulge. The steel belts also grabbed the 3/16" steel box around the steps and folded it neatly up, thereby ripping out one side of the steps and leaving them to drag on the highway (did I mention debris?).

After setting out the reflective triangles on the highway, I walked back to the scene of the blowout to collect some of the bigger pieces of metal and tire from the road. We don't want to litter now do we?! A Montana highway patrol officer was going the other direction when he saw us pull over so he quickly turned around and waited while we called the Good Sam Roadside Service.

Because our trailer is so big (and heavy) we have heavier duty tires than most trailers. It took Good Sam an hour to locate a tire service that had our size tire. But they did and Rayne from Whalen Tire came to our rescue. He mounted a new tire on one rim and put the spare in place of the other. He attached a chain to his truck and we pulled the bent steel plate back out of the way so we could get the new tire on. All in all it took about 3 1/2 hours which is exactly how much time we spent LAST September on the side of the road with our blown radiator. Humm, what is it about September???

All's well as they say and it was a beautiful day to get stranded on the side of the road. Here's a shot of our rig with the tire service truck next to us. Thanks Rayne!